The Quilt Story

I had almost forgotten the soft, creaking noise of a bamboo hand fan. Back in the north-east characterized by frequent power cuts, it used to be the only source of liberation and respite in the pitiless summer several years ago. This afternoon, the hand-fan turns out to be the only entity breaking an eerie silence. It’s ironical that I find something as modest as my childhood in the most cosmopolitan cities ever!

Singapore it is and I am in a claustrophobic, 8-bed, windowless, back-packers lodge. Suffocation is imminent, even as my scruffily dressed roommates are barred from smoking inside the room. Every few minutes someone returns from the shower with a gush of cologne and soap that adds to the asphyxia in the dark room. For company, I have mosquito nets, matchbox-size lockers, John Grisham, soon-to-explode godzilla sized backpacks and 6 foreigners mostly from central Europe. Discussions are intermittent, most starting with a spark and fading off with cultural or perhaps circadian disconnects. The feeling is of effortless ease seeing species of my own kind disconnected in many ways, yet linked through the several lonely miles traversed by each. From the congested Favelas in Brazil to the dusty roads in Indonesia, I see these species at every corner of human inhabitation. You are not alone – is a comforting feeling.

“Fold the bed-sheet and keep at reception…” –the owner of the lodge barges into the room. A Chinese by birth, he was plump with his large belly bulging out of his vest drenched in sweat. To me, he resembled the Laughing Buddha (sans the “laughing” part of course). It was well past noon as the alarm clock indicated the guests, their time to vacate. There was an empty yet calm look in the eyes of the one moving out of the dorm. He perhaps envisioned the route to the next destination, the several sleepy villages on the way, the hardships of nature, the countless smiling faces, the sign-language discussions with natives substituting GPRS, or perhaps the lonely stretch ahead.

All good-byes with strangers are flamboyant to the eyes and are ritually finished off real quick. Backpacker Rob waves at all his companions of the dorm and is now on his way out with the only belongings he needs to give back to the world – a white bed-sheet and a quarter of an inch thick, striped quilt. One night back at the 11^th floor, as I lazed on my thick foam mattress, with the large French window opening into the city’s magnificent skyline, the luxuries of an urban life were just a phone call away. From the business hotel to a backpacker’s lodge – the transition was overnight. The exercise was to see the mirage of life up close. Wake up one morning to find you have lost it all. The code of life seems to be binary – either hold on to the amusements it has to offer or tread the green mile as a habitual nomad.

The humid afternoon was taking its toll. I walked out of the room for some fresh air crossing the reception. The quilt and the bed-sheet lying right next to the owner’s throne. As I stepped out of the lodge into the street full of Chinese food stalls, I looked back through the corner of my eyes. Buddha had laughed…